Draconian Holiday
by harrysbakedate
Summary: Draco is sick of the life being heir to the Malfoy fortune has granted him. However, he would have never expected Hermione Granger to be the one to save him.


**For the sake of the story, Voldemort hasn't been a problem in the kids' lives since Harry's 4th year. Let's just say he died after the Tri-Wizard Tournament. The Golden Trio are still pretty famous for all of the things they did at Hogwarts, though. The most problems between the characters have been House and blood-purity related, but Voldemort is not an issue in this story.**

 **The premise loosely follows Roman Holiday.**

 **Also I don't own Harry Potter or any of the characters in it JKR please don't sue me.**

"Do you remember what we talked about?" asked his mother as he halfheartedly adjusted his dress robes.

"Of course, how could I forget," he replied sarcastically. "'You look lovely this evening', 'Thank you very much for coming', 'How are the kids?'"

"Are you quite done?" His mother snapped. "This is a very important night for you, Draco. I will not tolerate any inappropriate behavior. Pansy will be here tonight, and you cannot disrupt the agreement."

Draco clenched his jaw as his mother slipped out of the room. He looked at his appearance in the mirror dejectedly. It had been like this in the Malfoy household for months. Since his graduation from Hogwarts, his parents, especially his mother, hurriedly began the hunt for a suitable wife. It had made it hard to breathe at times how busily they hosted to find the perfect future heiress.

Even more tragically, the final winner was his worst nightmare: Pansy Parkinson. In his early years, he prided himself on being apart of the one of the most noble wizard family in Britain. The thought of going to events and meeting a submissive wife, up to the tasks required of her, seemed perfect to him.

In his youth he thought Pansy would make the perfect candidate for this prospect. They had bonded at Hogwarts over a love of bullying and superiority. She came from a suitable pure-blood family. However, in his now mature mind, the thought of his parents foisting him off to marry the likes of her made his stomach churn. She was vapid, and besides the love of tormenting others mentioned earlier, they had absolutely nothing in common.

At first, when feeling uncomfortable and morose at the idea of his future life, he tried to suppress and ignore these thoughts. He began convincing himself that he still felt as he once had. However, this became less and less believable when he made a discovery, only a few weeks before the horrid night he knew he was about to endure.

He had been stuck at yet another one of his mother's parties, with some annoying pure-blood witch talking his ear off. Something in him shifted. He felt less and less the need to impress his parents and sacrifice his individuality for this moron. So, he quickly excused himself and walked out of the room.

He began to wander the Manor, looking for some place to hide. When he found the entrance to the library, he knew he had found the perfect place. The library was enormous, with shelves and shelves to hide behind, even a second floor.

He closed the door and began to walk deeper into the library, in case his parents attempted to look for him. When he felt at a safe depth of the library, he began to browse the section of books he secluded himself in. They appeared to be textbooks, nothing that would interest him at the moment. He was about to leave the section when an unfamiliar title caught his eye, a title that did not seem to fit with the rest of the books occupying its section: _The Complete Works of William Shakespeare_.

He had heard the name before, he knew he was regarded as one of the greatest muggle writers of all time, meaning it would never be as good as a wizard writer. His indecision about picking up the book ceased when his brain took him back to the scene he just left. He much preferred to degrade himself by reading muggle literature as opposed to going back and having to talk to the witch he ditched.

Draco quickly grabbed the book from its place, before he could change his mind. He was unhappy at how the night turned out, and it was getting bleaker by the minute. He was skeptical of the book's quality, but his boredom overtook him and he began to flip through the pages. A title caught his eye as he was doing so, _Romeo and Juliet_.

He rolled his eyes at the cliché of it all. He was not deaf, he used to hear the jokes and references muggle-borns would make to the play. However, up until that moment, he would sneer at the inferior culture of muggle and dismiss their references. Now, though, the dull night halted all negative thoughts and only left curiosity.

Luckily, the parties his mother threw usually took quite a while, so he delved into the book to pass the time. When he reached the last pages of the story, he was completely immersed. Yes, the story was sickeningly romantic and the two main characters frustrated him, he was more than impressed. _Who knew muggles had it in them to create such literature?_ He pondered to himself.

He checked his watch and suspected the party would be wrapping up shortly. He tried his hardest to hide the book under his robes so he could sneak it up to his room. He walked to the front of the library and opened the door to check if the coast was clear. When it looked safe to leave, he hurriedly began the route to his room. However, when he heard the clearing of a throat behind him, he knew he hadn't gotten off so easily.

He tried to position his arm so the bulky book hiding in his coat would not be visible. "Father."

"Draco, where have you been?" his father seethed. "You're mother has been worried sick!"

"More like worried about the prospects I cost her tonight," Draco mumbled.

"What did you just say to me?" Lucius asked. "After all your mother and I have done for you, I never thought you would become so ungrateful."

"Would you believe me if I said I'd fallen ill?" drawled Draco.

"Don't ask a question you already know the answer to. But make yourself scarce. I don't think your mother can bear to look at you tonight," said Lucius.

Draco, in a normal circumstance, would have put up a fight. But at the moment, all he wanted to do was get up to his room without being caught with a muggle item, especially by his father. So, he just nodded his head and all but ran to his room to hide the book. Thus began his decent into muggle literature. He secretly ordered his house elf to bring him any muggle classic they could get their hands on.

A loud crack of lightening brought him out of his flashback. His decent into muggle literature had also lead him down to path of questioning his values. If he had been wrong about muggles' intelligence, what more had his parents, and even himself, been wrong about?

The somber setting outside seemed to fit his mood about the night's festivities. This was the day he was officially supposed to begin courting Pansy (something, he assumed, she had been waiting for since they met). Draco felt forlorn as he stared out onto the rainstorm plaguing their property. A soft knock on the door brought him back to the moment.

"Draco, darling, it's time," his mother informed him.

He silently nodded and made his way to where his mother was standing at the entrance to his bedroom. She kissed him on the cheek and told him, "You'll make us proud in there. I just know it."

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes and began walking to the ballroom. As much as he loved his mother, what kind of parent would willingly subject their child to a prison sentence. His whole world seemed to be flipping around him.

The party was in full swing by the time he arrived. Laughter and talk filled the hall, a complete juxtaposition to his feelings. As he scanned the room for the last person he would like to talk to, he finally saw her and as he did, his mother nudged him to her.

He felt as if he were walking to his death. It must be tense dramatic plays he's been reading, his internal monologue had become much more histrionic. When he reached her, he took her hand and kissed it, as he had been instructed to do. _I must have really turned into a Shakespearean douche,_ he thought bitterly to himself.

"Hello, Draco," Pansy greeted, looking completely enamored with his greeting.

"How do you do, Pansy?" he forced. It was frustrating him how blind she was being.

"Pretty great. Did you see the latest issue of the Daily Prophet? Potter's mudblood hasn't been seen by anyone in weeks. Finally took the hint that she's not welcome in this world, it seems."

Before his recent revelation, he would have engaged in this sort of talk with Pansy, and he was certain that right now she was assuming he would, but this conversation topic did nothing more than increase his distaste for the witch in front of him. He opted to remain silent.

Pansy, however, took this as a sign to keep talking, and continued, "What so you think happened to her? Maybe she offed herself."

"Maybe she got that blood-traitor to commit a double homicide with her," chimed in Theo. "Hey man, how've you been?" He asked this so calmly, so blasé, that Draco couldn't help but feel something snap inside of him.

He ignored Theo's outstretched hand and instead stated lamely, "If you'll excuse me."

Wrong. Everything they were saying felt incredibly wrong. Nothing he once believed made any sense to him any more. His so called "friends" were talking like they were the savages in _Lord of the Flies_. They were talking so calmly about a missing girl, and wishing for her death, at a formal dinner party. He was not a fan of Granger. If anything, he is probably the person who loathes her most on this planet. But talking about her being dead like that, so nonchalantly, was the last straw.

Fuck his parents, fuck his "future wife", fuck this backward savagery he used amusingly partake in. He was angry. In fact, he was seething. Every care about carrying out his parents' wishes went out the window when Pansy opened her mouth.

He made his way past the open bar on his angry walk out, stopped for a moment, leaned over to grab a bottle of Firewhiskey, and continued walking.

Hermione had a great day. The muggle book shop she had been frequenting had a job opening, which she applied for a week before. Today had been her first day on the job. It felt nice to have some normalcy in her life, and her profession included something she loved, which was definitely a plus.

While her day had put her in a positive mood, she still had the simmering of guilt in her gut. She was, admittedly, a coward. She was running away from her friends, her life. It was completely out of character, but she felt suffocated.

Harry and the Weasleys have been so lovely to her over the years, which exacerbated her shame for running from them all. When she graduated from Hogwarts, she thought she would be her usual, ambitious and hard working self after leaving. Ready for the next task. However, only a few weeks after graduation she began losing certainty about her future. She knew she was intelligent and had a bright life ahead of her, but feelings of ambivalence grew and grew until she finally snapped.

She decided going away for the summer would be good for her, she just needed to think without outside pressures. Everyone expected her to climb the "corporate" ladder at the ministry. But she wasn't certain it was what she wanted. She was always the one in the group with the answer to every problem. Though her friends would vehemently disagree if she admitted this, she felt like a fraud. Hermione needed to make this decision about her future alone, though it killed her to disappear on her friends.

Luckily, after a few days of renting a run-down apartment in London, she began to explore and stumbled upon a second hand bookshop which stole her heart immediately. Clearly the owner took the hint at the strange girl coming in every day and staying for hours to offer her a job. This brought Hermione to the joy she was feeling on a stroll through London.

She realized how dangerous this was, but had her wand on her if any creep tried to attack her. She would , hypothetically speaking, just obliviate them once she fended them off. With this plan in her head, she decided to take a stroll through the park to think things about her future through. While she disliked being alone with her thoughts on a decision like this, but she purposely isolated herself so she could do so.

However, after about 5 minutes walking through the park, she passed a fountain, and a man standing on the ledge of it.

"Some men take delight in the drinking and the roving," he sang, very off key. "But others take delight in the gambling and the smoking."

It was dark and it was hard to see who this man was, though he was clearly drunk. Hermione began to worry and instinctively reached for her wand in her jacket pocket. She walked closer but kept her hand on her wand in case he was dangerous.

"But I take delight in the juice of the barley," he slurred, "and courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early!"

She decided it was time to talk to the man, "Hello? Are you alright, sir?"

"Oh, me? I'm completely fine. How are you today ma'am?" he answered back, sarcastically. Though he was completely plastered, his reason for coming here was to be alone. He was not happy with the interruption.

It was the snarky remark which alarmed her, and she quickly moved to the man to confirm her suspicions. She held back a gasp, "Malfoy?"

"The one and only," he smiled drunkenly. "And who are you?"

The alcohol had clearly taken his general vision away, and his perception of anything or anyone around him. "You should come down from there."

"Okay, mom," he replied before attempting to step down from the ledge and, with no coordination, stumbled down and fell right into the arms of Hermione.

She let out a groan and tried to steady him and get him to stand up on his on. She had been smart enough to brace herself for such a fall and was able to keep them both from falling on the pavement. With drunken Malfoy all but passed out in her arms, she was blanking. This was not what she planned for her night, or ever, and had no clue what to do next.

However, Draco, now being insanely close to Hermione, finally realized who was holding him up, "Granger?" he mumbled, before subsequently passing out.

"Great. This is absolutely fantastic," she frantically ranted to herself as she attempted to drag them both out of the park to the road to hail a taxi.


End file.
